


What Would John Do?

by LogicGunn



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: BAMF Rodney McKay, Dreams, First Kiss, Getting Together, Horror, M/M, Nightmares, Psychosis, Rodney McKay Whump, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26271070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicGunn/pseuds/LogicGunn
Summary: When they strike, it’s almost a relief, hands pressing him down into the floor, teeth biting at his flesh; Teyla’s teeth in his left thigh, Ronon’s in his right arm, John biting down into his neck. He's too weak to fight them off so he doesn’t even try, just lies there and waits for death. As the light starts to fade, he tells himself that at least he’s with friends in his final moments.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 10
Kudos: 71





	What Would John Do?

**Author's Note:**

> Yup, another Rodney Whump. This isn't even the one I posted about on Tumblr the other day. I'm sorry, my poor cinnamon roll.
> 
> CW in the end notes, just in case.

When Rodney wakes up, he’s lying on a cold, hard floor. It says a lot about his life that this isn’t a particularly unusual event; he can count off at least seven times that it has happened in the past year alone. What  _ is _ unusual is the sharp pain in his gut, which worsens when he tries to move. He opens his eyes. The cell he’s in is barren and vast, tall wooden walls and a vaulted ceiling far above him. He presses his palms to the floor, feels the rough texture of wooden planks and the tell-tale stickiness of drying blood. His nose is assaulted with an array of smells, the coppery tang of haemoglobin, the sickly-sweetness of week-old sweat, damp mould growing in the corners, and something else, something utterly unfamiliar and alien. 

Pushing off from the floor Rodney tries to sit up, but the pain in his abdomen becomes excruciating; so much so that he cries out and falls back to the ground, panting with exertion, sweat gathering at his temples. So, getting up is out. He can take a hint. He feels his stomach with his hands, finds something protruding out of it just above his navel. It feels like a knife handle, small and compact, something Ronon might carry in his dreads. Before he has time to think about it, he pulls it out in a quick, fluid motion, feels a scream tear itself from his throat even before he hears it. He drops the blade down next to him and turns his head to the side, breathing through gritted teeth as he tries to push through the pain. A couple of meters away from him is John, lying on his side with his back to Rodney, unnaturally still and quiet. 

“John?” says Rodney, reaching out to him with his hand. John doesn’t stir. “John?” he tries again. He turns onto his side, clutching at his bleeding abdomen with one hand, and starts shuffling over to John in increments over the dirt-covered floor, grunting with each sweep of his hip and scrape of his elbow. He strains to reach John’s shoulder and tugs him over onto his back, sucking in a short, sharp breath at what he sees. John’s been fed on by a Wraith, his exposed skin is tissue-paper thin and wrinkled, his hair greying at the temples. Rodney presses his finger to John’s carotid artery, knowing deep down what he won’t find. There’s no pulse or breath, and John’s skin has the ice-cold feel of someone long dead. 

“John, fuck...no, no no no...John...” 

He shakes John’s shoulder and cups his face with his bloody hand. 

“John? John...wake up...please...” 

But John doesn’t move, doesn’t even so much as twitch. His head flops limply with every movement Rodney makes, when he pulls him closer it ducks down against his chest, when he pushes him back it falls to the side. There is no spark of life left inside his body. Rodney drops his head onto John’s shoulder and starts to cry, the anguish more painful than the wound in his gut. He kind of always knew John would go before him, but not like this, not like- 

“Fuck! This is not happening!” 

Rodney grips onto John’s t-shirt with one hand, the other pushing him off the ground into a sitting position, gritting his teeth, until he’s up on his knees. He looks back down at John’s body, catches a glimpse of the dog tags around his neck, shining in the warm light of the sconces on the walls. He focuses on the tags rather than John’s lifeless eyes, pulling them up over John’s head and around his own neck, stomping the emotions down as deep as he can as he tucks them under his own t-shirt. 

“What would John do?” he asks himself. Teyla and Ronon. He’d work on finding them and getting them out of here. So that’s what Rodney is going to do. He forces himself to stand on unsteady feet, limps over to the door to peer through the bars. There’s a hallway outside, more cells like this one. He tries the knob, surprised to find it unlatches easily, the hinges creaking as the heavy door swings open. He allows himself one last look back at John, lying frail and decrepit on the floor, then forces himself out of the cell and into the corridor. 

Fluorescent lighting assaults his eyes, a shock after the dim sconces in the cell. The corridor is modern, metal panelling and twinkling consoles, cold and clinical and alien. He checks all of the other cells in turn, each containing two wraith-defiled corpses, finds the bodies of Teyla and Ronon holding hands in the last one. He enters their cell to check on them, knowing that there is no hope but feeling for a pulse anyway on each of their necks. He feels hollow, disconnected, like nothing is real. He fumbles in their t-shirts for tags, forgetting for a moment that they’re not Earth military, curses the fact that the Pegasus galaxy doesn't have an equivalent. There’s nothing he can take back to Atlantis, no identifying markers, nothing to honour their sacrifice and give closure to the people back home. Neither of them wears jewellery; Ronon because he likes to keep things streamlined and Teyla because the necklace she once held dear turned out to be a Wraith tracking device. 

How did the Wraith find them? What planet are they on? He stands, heads back out into the corridor and approaches the door on the far end. Instead of bars, it has a glass window, and on the other side- 

“Oh my God.” 

Stars. He’s not on a planet, he’s floating in space. He turns around, horrified, watches as one by one the fluorescent lights go out and he’s caught up in darkness, just the light from inside the cells to see by, barely enough to find his way back to his cell where John is waiting. He collapses down next to John’s body, lost in the thought of the vast darkness of space, how far he is from home, from Atlantis, from a working stargate. He’s going to die here, in this floating module of prison cells, surrounded by death and decay, the only survivor of a wraith culling. Why didn’t they feed off of him? Why did they leave him alive? To torment him with his friends’ bodies? He turns to look at John again, takes in the greying cowlicks and the delicate wrists. He reaches out and grabs John’s cold hand, lies there quietly holding on to it and waits to bleed out from his wound. 

He’s not sure how long it’s been – Hours? Days? - when there’s movement next to him. John’s arm twitches under his hand. Rodney’s hazy and exhausted from blood loss and dehydration, he knows that, and he disregards the feeling as a hallucination brought on by deterioration. But he can’t ignore it when two figures suddenly appear in the doorway or fail to recognise Ronon’s dreads and Teyla’s strong and beautiful hands as they reach for him through the stillness of the cell. 

“Guys?” he says, scarcely believing his eyes. 

John rolls over and pins him with a dead-eyed glare, his corneas cloudy from death, his skin mottled with sluggish blood. Teyla and Ronon step closer, awkward ambling gaits, and kneel down at his feet. He calls out to them by name, but none of his team replies, they all just stare at him in silence, waiting for something, some unknown sign. When they strike, it’s almost a relief, hands pressing him down into the floor, teeth biting at his flesh; Teyla’s teeth in his left thigh, Ronon’s in his right arm, John biting down into his neck. He's too weak to fight them off so he doesn’t even try, just lies there and waits for death. As the light starts to fade, he tells himself that at least he’s with friends in his final moments. 

*** 

When Rodney wakes up, he’s lying naked on a cold, hard, metal table. That one’s new. It takes him a moment to realise he’s undamaged; there’s no knife wound aching in his  gut , no bites stinging from his team’s teeth. He can hear the beep-beep-beep of consoles, the clomp-clomp of non-military-issue boots, and the low murmur of conferring acidaemia. He’s not in Atlantis, there’s no low-level hum of the city he loves in the back of his head, but he’s somewhere technologically advanced. He lets one eye open, just a crack, and looks around. There are two people in the far corner pointing at a wall of monitors with fluctuating life-signs. Another person is wandering around the room carrying his P90, or possibly John’s or Teyla’s or Ronon’s. While their backs are all turned, he opens his other eye and takes a quick, assessing glance of the rest of the room. He can see other tables with sheet-covered bodies on them, hopes like hell they’re his teammates, but no other people in the room. The bodies are motionless except for the slow rise and fall of ribs expanding with each breath, so he knows he’s the one that has to get them out of here. He’ll only get one shot, better make it count. 

John’s trained him on deep relaxation techniques to help deal with capture, so he takes a couple of deep, cleansing breaths and lets them out slowly to bring his pulse right down. Something beeps on one of the monitors, and he hears a concerned voice calling out across the room. He takes another breath to slow his heart even more and feels the air move as someone comes over to check on him. There’s a one in three chance that it’s the person with the gun. He doesn’t like those odds, but they’re all he has so he’ll take them. As they bend over him he opens his eyes and grabs the gun hanging from their arms, squeezing the trigger as he twists the barrel into their BDU covered body. They scream and start to fall back, so he unclips the P90 and raises it, aiming it at the other two people, who have turned around in surprise, lab coats zipped up tight and tablets in hand. Behind them, the monitor that displays his vitals is erratic, bleeping rapidly as his adrenaline kicks in, and he can feel his heart thumping behind his ribs. The two scientists make a break for it, and he guns them down like paper targets in the shooting range on the city. Short, clean bursts, centre of mass. John would be so proud if he could see him. 

It’s a matter of moments to unhook himself from all the recording devices, then seconds more to check on the people lying on the tables. John, Teyla and Ronon all accounted for. They look whole and healthy, and he wonders what the hell these people have been doing to them that they all needed to be unconscious. He remembers the dream, so lifelike, so  _ real _ in its brutality. Some kind of virtual reality? None of his team stir, so he heads over to the monitors and tries to make sense of the readings. Everything is in an alien language, but he can see some displays that are graph-like, can decipher the readings for heart rate and blood pressure and oxygen levels, temperature and REM and something that looks like a measure of brain activity. It’s all basic stuff, and the consoles are primitive, all blinking lights and chunky buttons. These are not advanced aliens, they’re on the cusp of mid-twentieth-century technology at best. He turns off the monitors to stop the screeching of alarms that signify his disconnection, listens for the sound of approaching footsteps or anything to warn him that they’re about to be raided. It’s all quiet outside so he turns his attention back to his teammates. 

First, the electrodes, which he removes one by one, apologising profusely to an unconscious Teyla for having to touch her breasts. Someone coughs from behind him and he turns, gun raised and primed, but it’s only John who is ripping off his own electrodes and sitting up, clutching at his throat like he’s trying to tear it open. He looks terrible, weak and disoriented and sluggish. Rodney finishes up with Teyla then approaches John slowly, hands in plain sight so he doesn’t come across as a threat. 

“John?” he asks. 

John looks up at him, wide-eyed and confused. “Rodney? What the fuck just happened?” 

“What do you remember?” 

“I was...Jesus, fuck. Where are we?” 

“Some kind of lab, I don’t-” 

“Oh my,” says Teyla, and she sits up too, clutching the sheet to her chest. “Is everyone alright?” she asks, eyes fixed firmly above Rodney’s waist. 

Rodney flushes and grabs the sheet off his own table, wrapping it around himself and tucking the ends in tightly. 

“We’re fine,” says John, all signs of confusion lost in the mask of the Lieutenant Colonel. 

Ronon jerks awake and jumps off the table in one swift motion, knocking down all sorts of electronic devices. He falls into a defensive pose as he looks around, doesn't relax until he’s seen everyone is safe and checked the corners of the room for hidden dangers. “So...uh...” he begins. 

“Let’s get out of here,” says John, and that’s the best idea anyone has had in the history of the universe. 

*** 

If anyone is amused by the sight of AR-1 walking through the stargate dressed in bed linens and carrying one gun between them, the looks on their haunted faces nix any and all comments before they’ve even begun. Elizabeth rushes down the stairs from the command centre and directs them all the infirmary before even thinking about asking for a debrief, and they all wait patiently, dressed in scrubs, until Beckett gives them the all-clear. Elizabeth brings Heightmeyer to the debrief to monitor their mental health. It must be written on their faces that something truly disturbing happened to them off-world. When no one speaks, she clears her throat. 

“Why don't I start?” she says, and the four of them nod, silently. “You went through the gate at 0730 to M7X-666 to check out some energy readings the MALP picked up. You made your first and second check-in, but you missed your third. I sent a team through to find you but all that they found was Rodney’s scanner. That was three days ago.” 

“We’ve been gone three days?” says John, a hint of surprise peeking through his façade. 

“Three days and seven hours.” 

“We were...” John licks his lips. “Taken? I don’t remember how or by who-” 

“I had the most awful dream,” says Teyla.” 

“Me too,” adds Ronon. 

“We woke up in some kind of a lab,” says John. “We were connected to some kind of devices. Rodney-” He looks over at Rodney. “He got us out.” 

“Rodney?” asks Elizabeth. “Do you want to tell us what you know?” 

“I, uh...they were monitoring us while we slept,” says Rodney, looking at the table in front of him. “Had us hooked up to medical tech, big monitors displaying our stats. I think I woke up because one of the electrodes got dislodged from my head. I-I overpowered the guard, shot the scientists, unhooked my team and we got out of there.” 

When Rodney stops talking, there’s a silence as everyone takes in his account. Teyla shifts nervously in her seat, pulling at her scrub top. Ronon taps his fingers on the table, an unusual show of discomfort from the usually stoic man. John watches Rodney as he presses each finger to his thumb one by one, over and over. 

“You all mentioned dreaming,” says Heightmeyer when the silence grows too big. “Would you like to share them with the group?” 

Rodney shakes his head, but Teyla speaks. “I was being chased by something...something powerful and fast. I was running and running but I was unable to shake it off. People were screaming, and I- I was so afraid.” 

“I was running too,” says Ronon. “Only it wasn’t away from something, it was towards my team. But no matter how fast I ran I couldn’t reach them, they just got further and further away with each step I took. It felt so real, I collapsed from exhaustion. I could feel my muscles shutting down from exertion, couldn’t catch my breath. Then I woke up.” 

“John?” says Heightmeyer when neither he nor Rodney volunteers any information. 

John is completely stony-faced as he recounts his dream. “I was in a coffin. My team were burying me alive. I could hear them laughing.” 

Rodney feels everyone's eyes on him. He looks up at them all, waiting patiently. He opens his mouth to speak but feels his throat clam up under the scrutiny. 

“Rodney, this is a safe space. Nothing you say will be held against you.” 

“That’s not it,” says Rodney, desperately. “I...I can’t...I just can’t.” 

The chair falls back as he jumps up and he kicks it out of his way as he rushes to escape the meeting room, the voices of his team following him as he flies down the stairs past Chuck and the marines on ‘gate guard duty, into a transporter which takes him to the living quarters. He runs to his room and palms open the door, slipping inside and locking it behind him. Shower, he needs a shower. Wash off all the blood and the dirt and the fear and the- 

His door chimes but he ignores it, stripping off and stepping into the shower cubicle instead. He washes from top to toe, again and again, cleansing the hands that shot those three people and the stomach that doesn’t have a stab wound and the thigh that doesn’t have a bite mark. He washes and scrubs until his skin is raw, then he falls back onto the floor and drops his head in his hands, feeling the water trickle over his shoulders and back, washing away the soap and the dirt and the blood. The fear doesn’t wash away, it builds and builds in his chest until it feels like it’s going to burst out of him. 

He starts to cry, fat, wet tears that get lost in the shower water, sobbing until his throat is raw and the water runs cold and his body shakes, from the temperature or the tears, he’s not sure. He’s not really aware of anything until warm hands grab him by the shoulders and pull him into a hard chest, wrapping him in a towel and rocking him back and forth as he sobs. Fingers run through his hair and John murmurs a comfort: “It’s okay, Rodney, everything’s okay,” and “Shhhh, I've got you, you’re fine,” and “Everyone’s safe now, we’re home.” 

“I knew the designation M7X-666 was a bad omen,” sniffs Rodney into John’s white scrub top. 

“You called it,” agrees John. 

Rodney wipes his nose and sits up, leaning against the wall of the shower. John doesn't let go; he shifts his grip until he’s holding Rodney's hand in his. 

“This is new,” says Rodney, lifting their joined hands up. 

“Or old, depending on your perspective.” John hesitates for a moment. “Is this okay?” 

“Yeah, it’s okay.” Rodney turns his head. “Just so you know, I would never let anyone bury you alive.” 

John muses over this for a minute then squeezes Rodney’s hand. “I won’t laugh if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“That’s not it, I just-” 

“You can tell me anything.” 

“You were dead,” says Rodney, shuddering at the image. “You had the life sucked out of you by Wraith, you and Ronon and Teyla, and you were all dead. I was still alive and you all...you reanimated and you ate me.” 

“Like...like a zombie?” asks John, brows raised. 

“Yeah,” says Rodney. “And I know it sounds so stupid, saying it like that, but it was real. It was really real and I was scared and you were-” 

John kisses him on the temple. “I get it, Rodney.” 

“I’m sorry, your dream was worse.” 

“How so?” 

“In your dream we betrayed you.” 

"Mmm,” says John, noncommittally. “I think that says more about my mind than the three of you.” 

“You don’t trust us?” 

“I trust you just fine. I don’t trust me.” 

“That makes no sense-” 

John kisses Rodney square on the mouth. It’s soft and sweet and- “You are such a sneaky, sneaky, bastard,” says Rodney into John’s lips. 

“Who, me?” says John, grinning. 

“Distracting me with our first kiss.” 

“I would never!” 

“Sneaky sneak.” 

John stands and pulls Rodney up with him. “Come on. I told Heightmeyer I’d bring you to her office to talk.” 

“Oh God, do I have to?” asks Rodney. 

“Yes. But if you want to distract  _ her, _ you can tell her about the kiss.” 

“I might just do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fake MCD (it's just a nightmare), some mild gore.


End file.
